2025 has come and gone, and we're now already several days into a brand-new year: 2026. So, with that, it's the perfect time for people to take stock and think about the year ahead and what they want to change.
But rather than your typical New Year's resolutions of drinking less, exercising more, and losing weight, we've also been considering some slightly alternative goals for the year ahead, related to the topic of retro gaming, and we're curious to hear if there is anyone out there who has been thinking the same.
As a result, we thought it might be interesting to go over some of our own retro gaming goals here for the year ahead and put a call out for some of your own, if you have them. That could be anything from clearing your backlog, finally picking up the emulation-based handheld of your dreams, getting into FPGA gaming, or expanding your physical game collection. We'd love to know what you have planned for 2026, whether you're thinking of something relatively short-term or a longer and slightly more ambitious project you're hoping to chip away at over the next 12 months. Maybe we can even make this an annual tradition, so you can hold our feet to the fire in a year, should we all end up failing spectacularly.
So, without further ado, here are some of our own resolutions from team Time Extension (Jack & Damien) for the year to come.
Jack Yarwood
I have a few different goals in mind for 2026: from playing more Arcade Archives releases weekly to checking out the recent Dragon Quest HD-2D remasters that have been sitting in my backlog, taunting me ever since I first picked them up at release.
In fact, I'd love to check out more Dragon Quest games in general, so if you have any recommendations for hidden gems (spin-offs, etc), let me know in the comments. Growing up, I've always admittedly been more of a Final Fantasy fan, due to first discovering the series on PlayStation with Final Fantasy VII; Final Fantasy VI skipped the SNES in the UK, so I didn't get around to playing that and other earlier games in the series until VI, Anthology, and Origins were all released for PS1. But I adore Akira Toriyama's art, and have enjoyed Dragon Quest games in the past, such as the brief snippets of games I've played for work for research, as well as the Dragon Quest Builders series. So I'd love to really dive into the series in greater detail and try to get a better feel for it beyond my current Cliff Notes-style understanding.
In addition to that, I'm also hoping to experience more Japanese games in their native language, to hopefully help out with my language learning. For almost two years now, I've been plugging away at learning Japanese, taking lessons, checking WaniKani daily, placating the small green owl on Duolingo, watching any video I can find, and reviewing Anki decks, in addition to getting my hands on every language book I can find. So I'd love to start being a bit more confident and putting this all into practice, beyond just trying to watch Midnight Diner episodes on Netflix with the subs turned off.
Damien McFerran
My resolution for 2026, like every year before, is to play more video games!
Despite writing about them on a daily basis, I probably play fewer games now than I've ever done at any other point in my life. Juggling work responsibilities with family life (I became a grandad for the second time in 2025) is tricky, but thanks to the rise of handheld gaming – via the Switch, emulation devices and handheld PCs, like the AYANEO 3 – means I can squeeze in more gaming sessions than ever before, regardless of where I am. My goal for 2026 is to maximise this approach.
I'm also keen to reconnect with original hardware more meaningfully this year. Don't get me wrong, I love playing retro games on the Switch 2 or exploring past classics on devices like the Polymega and MiSTer FPGA, but I've come to realise that there's a physical side to retro gaming which is equally important.
Game Boy games just feel right when played on that original, blurry pea-soup display, and you cannot beat the thrill of booting up a physical cartridge on the SNES, Mega Drive or Neo Geo. There's something in that seemingly simple act which is timeless and part of the appeal for me personally – it's certainly more satisfying than booting up a ROM from a menu!
Beyond all of that, I'd like to end 2026 in better physical and mental shape than I started it!
So there you have it! Those are our resolutions. Now it's your turn. What are your plans for the year ahead? Let us know in the comments!